I am at the library on the computer and two Mormans, have come in and on either side of me taken a computer. I can see by glancing at them, nonchalantly they are both playing “Angry Birds” on the computer.
I was wondering, what are the rules if any for this? When the Mormans are on their assignment where they go around an preach or whatever they do. I thought they weren’t allowed to use the computer except for email home or something like that.
If they can use the computer to play Angry Birds why not just give them all laptops?
They often use library computers on their time off to write email home. They aren’t supposed to wander around the Internet hither and yon, but I shouldn’t think a little Angry Birds would upset anyone.
umm…unless you’re planning to convert–never initiate a conversation with a Mormon missionary.
You’ll make a friend who won’t leave you alone for two years.
Those guys are, well, … persistant.
Why do I see this misspelling on SDMB all the time?
How could you tell? Two white males with skinny black ties? Also, they’re Mormon, not Amish. Missionaries do have semi-austere lives, but they aren’t forbidden from visiting a library to my knowledge. They are probably not supposed to look at porn, but then that’s frowned upon at the library usually. Birds are ok.
Also, I just learned that Angry Birds was on desktops. I thought it was mobile only, ignorance fought.
Missionaries have one day per week that is called their “Preparation Day” or “P-day”. This is the day when they don’t normally have teaching appointments and take care of things like shopping, laundry, sending emails to home, sightseeing and other such activities.
I met a lot of mormans on missions overseas (taiwan, Japan, HK) and I never got the religious pitch once. Usually, would run into them in a place that foreigners never went, and most spoke the lingo.
General conversation usually went something like:
“hey, how you doing?” with an obvious american accent
“fine, how about you, what are you guys doing here?” although from their dress and usually nametags it was pretty obvious they were 18 or 19 year old kids on a mission.
“we’re on a mission.”
“that’s nice, do you know how the Giants are doing?” generally pre-internet days and substitute team/sport of the day.
And then we’d usually shoot the shit for a while and they would never again mention the mission.
They were just nice kids fresh of the boat in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in a foreign country. In fact, IMHexperience they were much more genuinely friendly than other christian missionaries I ran into.
The Mormons have had a presence here in southern Alberta for quite a long time. Many people locally are Mormons. But even with such a large Mormon population, the LDS church still sends missionaries out hereabouts.
I encountered two of them in a nearby Dairy Queen last July. It was a very hot day, and they were buying themselves each an ice cream cone. I think they deserved it; it was not the sort of day that one would voluntarily wear long-sleeved shirts, ties, dress pants, and shoes. So if they took a few minutes from their rounds to buy and enjoy an ice cream treat on a hot day, I say, let them. Similarly, if they choose to use their free time to play Angry Birds on a public library’s computer, I say, let them.
I am not a Mormon and I do not wish to be one, but I do feel for their missionaries, who (like all missionaries) have a tough row to hoe in converting the heathen. To the LDS church’s credit, once I say, “No thank you, I’m not interested,” their missionaries leave me alone. But that may be why I’m willing to cut them a little slack; and if their missionaries can relax a little by having innocent and harmless fun with Angry Birds on a public library computer, or by enjoying an ice cream from Dairy Queen on a hot day, then I say, let them do it.
I wonder if the strict limitations on LDS missionaries are due to this line of thinking- “Let’s make rules against some harmless stuff so they can lapse a bit & get the feeling of being naughty out of their systems while they don’t do anything really bad.”
Actually, that raises (to me) a very good question: why does the LDS church send missionaries to places where many people are Mormon? They’re not going to convert the converted, and those of us who are not converted, are not likely to change–at least, this is the attitude of those who attend the mainstream Protestant church I attend, when I do attend church.
In short, my question (and remember, I am based in southern Alberta, where the LDS church has a large presence) is this: why do Mormon missionaries try their luck in places where (a) Mormons are the majority; and (b), people who have put up with LDS missionary work are so sick of being prosletyzed to by Mormons, that they are unlikely to change from their faiths out of spite? As I said above, Mormon missionaries will leave one alone if requested, but missionaries turn over from year to year, and I have to renew my “No thank you” from year to year.
It seems to me that sending missionaries into such an area would be a waste of time and person-power, but I would welcome some insight.
There are always some folks who haven’t heard it yet. If an area doesn’t have much action, the missionaries are spread thinner. A lot of it is based on local ‘demand,’ which changes from year to year. But really, I don’t know much about it; it would be better to ask an actual missionary, not me.
Perhaps. dangermom, I should be asking, How does one get on a “never speak to this person ever” list? I am always polite to Mormon missionaries, but they are wasting their time with me–time that could be better spent talking to people who might actually listen and respond to their message. Me, I’m a lost cause.
My college roommate did it by asking to borrow their cups so he could show them his beliefs. He wasn’t being mean, either. He just honestly thought that anyone who would go around telling people about their beliefs would enjoy hearing about his.
They promised to let him use them next time, but then they never came back.
BTW, for those wondering about “cups”: apparently they used cups with various characters printed on their sides as visual aids. Or at least that’s how I understood it from what my roommate told me.
I discovered on a recent trip to Nauvoo that another thing missionaries do is serve as greeters and guides at the LDS and Church of Christ sites there. They were very easy-going with me once I said, “I’m only here for the history,” and were very helpful. One of them went above and beyond actually, telling me I wouldn’t like the jail in Carthage because the tour was too prayerful. (I went anyway, and she was right. I had to bail before the tour was over.)
There is no such list… at least there wasn’t when I was a missionary. In theory the missionaries could and should maintain records of where they worked and could make notes. But in practice these are young men and women in their late teens / early twenties. And few ever kept good records. And as each missionary tends to work in a given area for 4-6 months the “institutional memory” is very short. There were generally no notes on where missionaries previously worked in my areas, and I never really read the ones there were when they existed.
